To the Partial Eyes of a Lover, Pockmarks Seem like Dimples
by FoxOnPie
Summary: Submissions for Rare Pair Month 2018. Day 10: Trust: In which Uraraka works up the confidence to keep a promise with Nejire.
1. Jumpin' Jack Flash

Kendou tapped her foot against the training room floor in an impatient rhythm. She hated herself for doing that. She had only been waiting for ten minutes, and she had called him out pretty suddenly, so it wasn't right of her to feel so impatient. Maybe she was just still rattled by her talk with Atlas. That made sense, she mused. Learning that you were destined to fight a Quirk-stealing Villain who'd been alive for over a hundred years was the perfect thing to be hard to digest. On that note, she was suddenly feeling sick to her stomach.

Before she could determine whether or not the sickness was real or all in her head, the door opened up, and exactly who she hoped would show up showed up.

"Hey, Izuku!" Kendou said with a wave of her hand.

"H-H-Hello, I-I-I-I-Itsuka!" Midoriya said, his face dyed red with embarrassment.

"Come on, I said you don't have to do that. If you aren't comfortable using my first name, you can still keep calling me 'Kendou'."

"B-But you're already calling me 'Izuku' without any difficulty, and if one of us isn't addressing the other person in the same way, it'd feel really weird, don't you think? I-I think so, so I just want to keep trying to get better at it…" Midoriya kept rattling off a number of excuses. As he did, his hands increased to massive size before being used to cover the entirety of his head. He had a habit of doing that whenever he got nervous or embarrassed.

Ever since Kendou and Midoriya started going out, Kendou had seen him do that at least ten times a day.

"Okay, fine, I won't fight you on it, Mr. Tough Guy. How about you at least add a '-san' to my name? Not a bad way to talk to a lady, after all."

"O-Okay," Midoriya said, his hands shrinking down and being removed from his head. "So I-Itsuka-san, you said you wanted to do some sparring, right?"

"That's right. Need time to warm up?"

"No, I'm fine, but is this the best idea? You can't use Super-Power without breaking your bones, and even if you can concentrate it all into your fingers, Recovery Boy will still get mad at you for doing it again when you're not even in class."

Kendou gave him a grin, the corners of her mouth nearly touching her freckles.

"That's actually why we're doing this. During my work study with Atomic Blonde, I finally figured out a way to use my Quirk without destroying my body!"

"You did?! That's amazing, Itsuka-san!" Midoriya pulled her into a hug, only to end it two seconds later with another red face. Kendou could relate to that, so she was far from upset.

"A-Anyway! I haven't been able to get in a lot of good practice for this technique, and since you're a tough guy and you always make me feel super confident and stuff, I thought you'd be the best person to ask," Kendou said at an incredibly fast pace.

"I'll try to meet your expectations," Midoriya said in a clear voice.

"You calmed down pretty quickly."

"I'm too excited to be nervous. After all, Itsuka-san, this is my first chance to see what you're fully capable of."

"In that case, here's hoping _I_ can meet _your_ expectations."

The two of them got themselves into combat stances. Kendou had the room for ten more minutes, and she was going to make sure they used them.

 _Here I go,_ Kendou told herself. _One for All: Full Cowl!_

One percent, two percent, three percent, four. Five percent, six-no, just five. Five percent of One for All was still the most she could handle. It was still the most she could handle having spread across her body, the act coupled with orange lightning circling her body. She still wondered if anyone could actually see that, but she could think more about that, later. Now was the time for action.

""Let's go!"" the two shouted in unison. Kendou charged at Midoriya and immediately threw out a punch. Midoriya enlarged his right hand and set up a guard; it worked, but the impact set him off balance and made him stumble back. Kendou didn't let the opportunity pass her by, so she took advantage of Midoriya's rattled state to launch a kick at his stomach.

The kick landed, but Midoriya managed to stand his ground after impact; he was less rattled that Kendou thought, apparently. He hooked his arms around her leg and put in enough power to lift her off the ground and slam her into the floor. Even with Full Cowl, hard concrete could still hurt, and while Kendou was busy with that revelation, Midoriya had already slammed a giant palm against her body.

 _Yep, that still hurts, too,_ Kendou said to herself. _But this isn't the Sports Festival! I'm a lot better at fighting back!_

Kendou kicked against the floor with enough power to launch herself up and knock Midoriya's hand away. While she was still in the air, he threw two giant hands at her with a dual chop, but Kendou got her arms up to block just in the knick of time. He brought his hands back and jumped into the air after her, hitting her in the stomach with a headbutt. Bad idea. Even though she couldn't avoid the hit, Kendou was able to take a page out of his book and wrapped her legs around his body. He was locked up tight as she fell to ground and repositioned so his back hit the floor, hard. In the brief second Kendou took to be proud of herself, Midoriya punched her left side with a giant fist that sent her flying into a wall.

"Ah! I-Itsuka-san! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hit you that hard! Are you alright?!" Midoriya said.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Sorta, kind of," Kendou said. She could already feel Full Cowl deactivating from a lack of continued focus. "I think this is a good time to stop, though."

Kendou got up from the ground in a slowed pace with a crick in every one of her nooks and crannies. She still needed a better handle on Full Cowl, and Midoriya was simply good at packing a punch.

"That could have gone better," Kendou said with a sigh.

"Really? I thought that was amazing!" Midoriya said. "You've made so much progress in just one week; it's like you have a completely different Quirk!"

"Yeah, I guess so." The guy clearly meant well, but Kendou couldn't help but feel even more annoyed. She hated herself for doing that. After spending her entire life being Quirkless and only having a real power for a few months, that kind of praise only sounded like "You're getting the hang of it, sweetie! Just keep doing what you're doing!" or something else equally condescending. Midoriya didn't mean any of that, but she couldn't stop herself from hearing that, and she hated it.

"Look, I know you're frustrated, and I know that just telling you to keep trying is the last thing you want to hear, but please! Don't think about whether or not you need to catch up to everyone, think about how much you've grown! You've gotten so great in so little time, and I just know you'll keep getting better, but you can't try and rush it. If you just take things one step at a time, the payoff will be that much better. I promise you, Itsuka!"

Kendou felt herself being literally taken aback. That was the most Midoriya had said in a single instance without stuttering all over the place, and it was all exactly what she needed to hear.

"You're the best, you know that?"

"I-I think you might have said that, before." While Midoriya was busy laughing to himself, Kendou leaned in and kissed his mouth. She stayed there for a few seconds, and as soon as she moved away, he lost consciousness and fell down on his back.

Her boyfriend might have been the dorkiest guy around, but he always knew the right things to say. She loved him for that.

* * *

 **Here's my first story for Rare Pair Month 2018, adding a new entry to a criminally underrated pairing. It's based off that one image that has a bunch of random characters in different roles, including Kendou in Midoriya's role. Hope I did it justice!**


	2. Diver Down

With the wind blowing through her hair and the cold autumn air rubbing against her body, it didn't take long for Uraraka to decide that she had made a huge mistake.

"I've made a huge mistake," Uraraka said.

"Uraraka-san, come on! You were the one who said that we just _had_ to do this, remember?" Nejire asked, standing next to her with a pout.

"That had to be a major lapse in judgement on my part. Why else would I go through with this? At the very least, why would I pick a building that's so big?"

Uraraka tilted her head over the edge of the building and gazed down at the street below. In the nighttime environment, the cars below all looked like dozens upon dozens of glowing ants. Doing this, of course, was another mistake on Uraraka's part.

"I-I don't think I can go through with this," Uraraka said.

"But it'll be so much fun! It'll be the best feeling you'll ever feel in the world, I promise you!" Nejire said. "This is our last day working together, so when are we gonna have another chance to do this?"

Uraraka wanted to argue with that, but she couldn't come up with anything that felt good enough. This was something she and Nejire wanted to do since they started working together, but there was always too much work to find the time. That would be even more true with their internships getting put on hold, since there wouldn't be as many opportunities for them to hang out together. If she still wanted to do this, this would be the best chance for it.

"I know that, but what if something goes wrong? What if-" Nejire locked her hand around Uraraka's, and Uraraka forgot whatever it was she was planning to say.

"I'm not going to let anything happen to you. If you don't want to do this, you don't have to, but please trust me when I say I'll keep you safe."

Nejire grabbing her hand made it hard for Uraraka to say anything, and looking into her eyes made it even harder to argue. It didn't look like she was doing it to try and force things to go her way; she was simply speaking with a simple sense of innocence. When faced with something like that, there really wasn't much that a person could do.

"Okay, Hadou-senpai. I trust you, so let's do this."

"Great!"

With a large smile on her face, Nejire let go of Uraraka's hand and pushed her off the building.

Uraraka started screaming as much as one might expect a person to scream after being pushed off a building and started regretting her life choices as much as one might expect a person to regret their life choices after being pushed off a building. However, a few seconds later, she felt her descent come to a sudden stop and a wave of relief rushed over her. She knew this would happen, she knew that Nejire would grab her by the waist in freefall, but that didn't make it any less nerve wracking.

"What'd I tell you?! Wasn't that exciting?!" Nejire asked.

"Maybe a little too exciting," Uraraka said. She really hoped she wasn't going to vomit.

"Now we're at the best part. Don't squirm around, or anything!"

Uraraka felt herself being lifted higher into the air, even above the building she was just pushed off of. Her body was turned horizontally, and she could hear the spinning energy of Nejire's Quirk intensify as her body was shot forward at a slow pace.

The slowness of the flight let Uraraka take in everything around her. The hustle and bustle of the city below, the twinkling of the stars above, even the wind blowing against her sides fell back into the mix. None of it was new to her, but all of it felt completely new when she was up in the air like this. It felt completely unique.

"This feels incredible," Uraraka said. There were no other words to describe it.

"I told you it would," Nejire said. "I just wish we had gotten around to this earlier. I could have made you love this from the start, and then we could have done something like this every day. But you know what? I think making this a last memory makes it even more special, don't you?"

She could feel Nejire's grip tighten.

"Don't talk like that. We may not be working together anymore, but no one said that we won't be together, anymore. So don't think of this as one last good time, think of it as the first of many."

"You really mean that?"

"I do. Trust me." Uraraka tilted her head up as far as she could. Fortunately, that was far enough for her to be able to kiss Nejire on the cheek.

"Okay, it's time to go down, now," Nejire said. "I'm feeling _way_ too happy right now to have any confidence in being able to not drop you."

Uraraka thought that was understandable. She didn't know what to do with herself right now, either.


End file.
